In This Issue:  | | • | WE NEED YOU TO ACT TODAY, AUG 17, 2007: | | | • | HERE'S WHAT TO SAY: | | | • | HERE'S WHO TO CALL SPECIFICALLY TODAY: | | | • | What else can YOU do? | |
Featured Links: | | | | In 4LAKids: Sunday, August 5, 2007 smf wrote:
When LAUSD set out on the $20 billion building campaign now underway it was because of the near failure of our educational infrastructure – not the system, not the program, certainly not the kids! We had been thirty years putting kids in "temporary" bungalows on abbreviated schedules and wondering why the end result was consistently poor.
'Year Round School' sounds like more education… but it's always less – less packed into a smaller box!
The voters in LA saw this when they voted for the four bond measures, BB, K, R and Y - and the state matching bonds Propositions 47 and 55 passed by both LA and state voters. Last year the governor championed more infrastructure bonds – including Prop 1D for schools.
But, because of a technicality, LAUSD could be denied any of that new school bond money! We in LA will pay the taxes for the bonds – but we won't get the benefit. Because, according to the formula, our schools are not overcrowded! (I invite the legislature – a mere 120 occupying the four square block state capitol to join the students at Garfield or Belmont …or on any LAUSD campus at lunchtime!
Through other technicalities and just plain inflation the promised state match hasn't been the 50% promised – but closer to 40% – and earlier this year the governor proposed to institutionalize that mismatch. In 2012, when the current construction program is complete –when every student in LAUSD has a seat in his or her neighborhood school and is attending school on a traditional two semester calendar – two hundred thousand of them will be in a temporary portable classroom!
And gentle reader, that's IF the state comes up with the promised match AND we get the Prop 1D money! And those classrooms, whether permanent or temporary, will be loaded at the current class sizes. And those class sizes are far/far too/too big!
Again, Small Schools and Small School Learning Communities are not smaller class sizes!
WE NEED YOU TO ACT TODAY, AUG 17, 2007:
Track down your State Senator and Assemblyperson; each and every one of us has one of each. They are among us right now, every man and woman Jack and Jacqueline of them are on vacation back at home from their strenuous labor of not passing a budget! Tell them you want them to support AB 1014 (Bass), tell them the children of Los Angeles need them to support AB 1014.
CALL 'EM FROM YOUR HOME.
CALL 'EM FROM VACATION.
CALL 'EM FROM YOUR CELL PHONE.
I'm not specifically calling for school district employees to tie up the office phones – but if you do it and get caught (Activism is not about following the rules!) I will write a note to the superintendent in your defense!
This one's a no brainer. I stood on the steps of the Chamber of Commerce two Tuesday mornings ago shoulder-to-shoulder with Superintendent Brewer, Mayor Villaraigosa, Assemblymember Bass, Board President Garcia and a lot of the movers & shakers (and the moved and shaken) …AND WE ALL CHAMPIONED AB 1014! (Garcia did show a bit of the old Freudian slip when she endorsed AB 1014 as AB 1381 to much feigned hilarity!)
Tell your neighbors and your legislators: We need this bill – or we won't be able to keep the promise we made to the voters and the taxpayers and the parents …and The Kids.
Have all those kids, teenners and tweeners at your house for the premiere of High School Musical II on the Disney Channel (8PM) call …after all, it's for them!
How can they possibly realize their promise if we don't keep ours?
Onward -smf
HERE'S WHAT TO SAY:
Hello. My name is ________ and I live in __________. I am calling to ask you to support two Assembly Bills: AB 1014. This bill is really important to provide our kids neighborhood schools, free from overcrowding. Our kids shouldn't be forced to ride a bus over an hour each way just because another school has more room than the school in my neighborhood. We've passed 3 school bonds since 2002 and we're just asking the State to keep its end of the bargain. Every neighborhood deserves a great school. Please support AB 1014 so that every neighborhood can have one.
Thank you for your time.
(...or write your own script!)
HERE'S WHO TO CALL SPECIFICALLY TODAY:
August 17, 2007 – Target Calls to Chair and LAUSD Members of Senate Appropriations Committee
Senator Torlakson, Chair of Senate Appropriations
916.651.4007 Sac 925-754-1461 Dist
Senator Sheila Kuehl, LAUSD Delegation
916.651.4023 Sac 310-441-9084 Dist
Senator Jenny Oropeza, LAUSD Delegation
916.651.4028 Sac 310-318-6994 Dist
Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas, LAUSD Delegation
916.651.4026 Sac 310-641-4391 Dist
Senator Gil Cedillo, LAUSD Delegation
916.651.4022 Sac 213-612-9566 Dist
Speaker Fabian Nunez, LAUSD Delegation
916-319-2046 Sac 213-620-4646 Dist
What else can YOU do?
• E-mail, call or write your school board member:
Yolie.Flores.Aguilar@lausd.net • 213-241-6383
Marlene.Canter@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180
Julie.Korenstein@lausd.net • 213-241-6388
Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382
Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
...or your city councilperson, mayor, the governor, member of congress, senator - or the president. Tell them what you really think! • There are 26 mayors and five county supervisors representing jurisdictions within LAUSD, the mayor of LA can be reached at mayor@lacity.org • 213.978.0600
• Call or e-mail Governor Schwarzenegger: 213-897-0322 e-mail: http://www.govmail.ca.gov/
• Open the dialogue. Write a letter to the editor. Circulate these thoughts. Talk to the principal and teachers at your local school.
• Speak with your friends, neighbors and coworkers. Stay on top of education issues. Don't take my word for it!
• Get involved at your neighborhood school. Join your PTA. Serve on a School Site Council. Be there for a child.
• Register.
• Vote.
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